Monday, August 29, 2011

A couple of juvie justice stories related to county budgets caught my eye recently that may interest Grits readers. First, Taylor County (Abilene) is experiencing 50+% turnover in juvenile detention staff, apparently because of low pay, according to the Abilene Reporter-News:

To Deputy Chief Larry Jones, the news that Taylor County trails in its pay for juvenile probation and detention personnel isn't shocking.

"We hire a lot of people — we have over 50 percent turnover in detention officers," said Jones, who now oversees fiscal services. "Part of what's reflected, I believe, is due to some lower salaries."

An analysis of salary data by the Reporter-News found that Taylor County paid its juvenile detention staff the least out of a comparison that included Midland, Wichita and Tom Green counties, while payment for juvenile probation personnel was last.

That's a problem, Jones said, because the county wants the best possible personnel to work with such children, who are often "abused, neglected and thrown away."

Meanwhile, Calhoun County is closing a "boot camp" for juveniles because of a budget shortfall, reports the Victoria Advocate, but in this case that may be a good thing. Juvie boot camps were a fad in the '90s, but with the rise of evidence-based practices in juvenile justice settings, they've consistently been categorized among approaches that don't actually achieve measurable, positive results (pdf) and in many cases have resulted in physical abuse and even death (pdf). Budget cuts aren't always a bad thing because they force government to set priorities and make hard choices that wouldn't be politically palatable in economic good times. The opportunity to eliminate programming that may sound good to the tuff-on-crime crowd but fails to achieve promised results is a silver lining to the dark budget cloud hanging over Texas counties.

9 comments:

Anonymous
said...

So what will this new MEGA agency do about keeping good people employed? Has anyone been appointed to the transition team or board yet? Are we waiting on presidential candidate Perry to come home and take care of business at home?? September 1 is close.

that is what happens when you allow a "Juvenile Justice Board" to get involved in an agency they know nothing about! Also, the county pays a chunk to the Juvenile Justice and they don't want the officers to make more than the "maintenance men"!

Im just gonna say that the bottom line is relationships, i have seen kids cry when left boot camp hugging drill instuctors. But the kids were challenged and supported into accomplishing things they could not even dream about, and I have seen boot camps that were just downright cruel, and I wanted to punch the drill instructor myself. The sooner we realize that the only magic bullet is to make a one on one human connection. The better off we will be both fiscally and socially. I hate it when people talk about this program or that, these are human beings and will need other human beings to model appropriate socially acceptable behavior.(Parents are you listening?) We will be much better off when we stop listening to university know it alls, advocates and state agencies, who don't get out of Austin, while paying millions to study what we already know, relationships either make us better or worse.

8/30/2011, 1:00pm-Boy are you in for a shock! The only thing that's going to change is that two poorly led, ineffective agencies will merge into one giagantic blob of poop, run by the same incompetent currently running the show. Until that condition is rectified it's going be no different than it ever was.

It is disappointing that children that have already likely experienced such turbulent upbringings are not getting the resources they deserve. It's time Texas takes a stand to recognize the problems facing juveniles and fix the core funding issues, not just put another bandaid on the problem to cover it up.

Here it is 2013 and nothing has changed, I have read all the comments from 2 years ago in this post and it's all true. There has been several Good Juvenile Officers that continue to leave this job because of the low pay and there will be a lot more walking away because the pay remains the same and things are only getting worst.This job has left several JDO's living pay check to pay check and some not even able to pay there bills on time or afford daycare,I'll tell you why....it's because the higher ranking people over the facility's is making triple the amount a year than the JDO, so they don't have any complaints..regardless of what the JSO's or going through they don't seem to care just as long as it don't inter fear with their salary.The JSO's are the one's who deal with these juvenile's 24/7 yet they are still under paid and also under staffed which makes it even harder to stay there when they are already under paid.Someone needs to stand up and give these officers what they deserve because if it was the other way around like the top people getting pay cuts or had to live pay check to pay check I bet they would stand up and say something then.I'ts the T.C Juvenile Justice Center, but there is no Justice in it for the Juvenile Detention Officers.Keep being selfish big timers and watch the crime rate sky rocket not only in the bad neighbourhoods also yours then you all will appreciate what good juvenile officers deserve other than being under paid.

Southern, daily and good for you

Grits for Breakfast looks at the Texas criminal justice system, with a little politics and whatever
else suits the author's fancy thrown in. All opinions are my own. The facts belong to everybody. Who is this guy?

"I always tell people interested in these issues that your blog is the most important news source, and have had high-ranking corrections officials tell me they read it regularly."

- Scott Medlock, Texas Civil Rights Project

"a helluva blog"

- Solomon Moore, NY Times criminal justice correspondent

"Congrats on building one of the most read and important blogs on a specific policy area that I've ever seen"

- Donald Lee, Texas Conference of Urban Counties

GFB "is a fact-packed, trustworthy reporter of the weirdness that makes up corrections and criminal law in the Lone Star State" and has "shown more naked emperors than Hans Christian Andersen ever did."

-Attorney Bob Mabry, Woodlands

"Grits really shows the potential of a single-state focused criminal law blog"

- Corey Yung, Sex Crimes Blog

"I regard Grits for Breakfast as one of the most welcome and helpful vehicles we elected officials have for understanding the problems and their solutions."

Tommy Adkisson,Bexar County Commissioner

"dude really has a pragmatic approach to crime fighting, almost like he’s some kind of statistics superhero"